Fourth Tuesday

Due to his rapid arm movements , Seven needed to be "shirted" in the night. The corners on part of his IV on his arm were scratching his skin. He looks less sick with clothes on, I think.

The EEG was scheduled today. While Seven was asleep (which is optimal conditions for an EEG to be performed) the nurse called them down. This is the machine. The light looking thing at the top is a camera to record what the patient is doing during the recording.

Electrodes are placed all over the head to record electrical activity in the brain for a certain allotment of time.



Just in case Seven gets "handsy," his head is all wrapped up. Seven promptly woke right up and started flailing around during the test. He only seemed to settle down during the strobe light part. That seems to be the opposite of what usually happens...





He seemed rather agitated for the majority of the rest of the day. Doctors are trying to attribute it to withdrawals from the medications he has been on over the past few weeks. Jarrad and I aren't so sure, but we are willing to wait and see how he does when they set up a weaning schedule.




Jenn, Seven's feeding/speech therapist came by to help him with his "jonesing." She brought jingle bells, vibrating fish and a rain stick. We all took turns holding him, trying to placate him as best we could. Jenn's combination of vibration with the rain stick and banging the jingle bell in a specific pattern on his pillow seemed to work for the largest allotment of time. Nothing really worked long term though. Seven was sweating excessively, had enlarged pupils, rubbed at his eyes, flailed his arms, and had some diarrhea. These can all be attributed to withdrawals.

We spent the day trying to get Seven up to a certain comfort level of comfort by adjusting the pain/anxiety drugs. Once that level is met, a schedule is creating for appropriately weaning down. If Seven is still having these symptoms while weaning, than we are going to have to reevaluate what we could attribute this too.

The neurologist took a look at the EEG and noticed a couple of things. The first thing was that Seven's normal brain waves seem to have a lower frequency than what is typical for his age. Seven being on pain/anxiety meds could possibly be skewing the results. There were also a few spikes of activity in the brain waves at random times. During these spikes, Seven's physical activity did not change. The neurologist wanted us to watch him over the next few days and note if we see him do some small movements that seem strange to us like flexing or shaking one or more limbs. This could be a sign of some new seizure activity. Another question in the air is if Seven is going to be different from now on, due to the change in the brain from the illness. And again, as with all things, we just have to wait and see.